Resource center seeks sponsors for Christmas gifts

Fairgrove Family Resource Center executive director Terri Nelson (left), staff member Sherry Nobles and volunteer intern Tyler Hunt address and apply postage to postcards at their facility earlier this month. The postcards are for requesting financial donations and/or holiday shoppers for needy children for the organization.

Published: Monday, November 26, 2012 at 12:30 a.m.

Last Modified: Friday, November 23, 2012 at 5:00 p.m.

"Gifts from the Heart" helps provide hundreds of Thomasville and eastern Davidson County children with Christmas presents each year.

Facts

Want to help?

Fairgrove Resource Center needs sponsors for its 'Gifts from the Heart' program, which provides Christmas gifts for children in the Thomasville area. To adopt a child to shop for or for more information, call 472-7217. If you do not want to shop but would still like to help, you can send checks made out to GFTH to the Fairgrove Family Resource Center, 159 Myrtle Drive, Thomasville, NC 27360.

Without the community's help, Terri Nelson, executive director of Fairgrove Family Resource Center, said these children would probably not receive any gifts if people did not sponsor them.

"My fear is a child is going to wake up and wonder what they did. This is a program we have no funding for," Nelson said.

Nearly 400 children benefit from the program that is offered to families having financial difficulty each year.

The students are from Brier Creek, Fair Grove and Pilot elementary schools and Brown Middle and East Davidson High schools. It also includes all four schools in Thomasville City Schools. The students are selected by guidance counselors and teachers.

Sponsors will receive a shopping list from the family that includes the child's clothing needs and a few wants the child may have, Nelson said. The children's identity is never released.

Nelson emphasized the gifts include basic needs a child may have such as clothes, shoes and personal items like soap and toothpaste. The children may also list a couple of wishes they have.

Sponsors can do the shopping themselves or write a check, and someone from the staff will pick up the items. If you don't have time to shop, you can make a donation, and someone will shop for a child who hasn't been adopted, Nelson said.

The items need to be placed in an unwrapped bag but should include wrapping paper in order to let the parents participate by wrapping the gifts. The gifts will need to be returned by Dec. 11.

"These are children that need it the most," Nelson said.

Deneesha Edwards can be reached at 249-3981, ext. 213, or at deneesha.edwards@the-dispatch.com.

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